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Ford to close Australian manufacturing plants

By Bloomberg News

Posted:
05/24/2013 12:01:00 AM MDT

Updated:
05/24/2013 01:35:42 AM MDT

SYDNEY — Ford will stop making cars in Australia, nine decades after founder Henry Ford first began building Model T's in the country, as a surge in the currency undermines the local industry's ability to compete with imports.

Ford Australia faces costs double those in Europe and four times those of its Asian divisions, local president Bob Graziano told reporters Thursday.

He announced the loss of 1,200 jobs from October 2016 at two plants in Melbourne and Geelong.

Australia's three car makers have struggled as a 27 percent rise in the local dollar against the yen over the past year stoked sales of cheaper imported vehicles and cut exports.

Ford is the smallest of the nation's three manufacturers after units of Toyota and General Motors.

The removal of one could spark a "domino effect" as the industry as a whole becomes too small to support its own supply chain, said Jac Nasser, a former executive of Ford globally.

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